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THE TESTIMON^Y 



Jl Refugee fraiii Cast Cfttncssfe. 



Chaplain U. S. A. 




PHILADELPHIA: 

PRINTED FOR GRATUITOUS DISTRIBUTION". 

18 63. 



A EEFUGEE'S TESTIMONY. 

It may seem bold and self-confident, indeed, tliat in tlie 
face of the multitude of pamphlets, addresses, essays and 
treatises, which this war has called forth, I should add one 
or more to the number. And yet there are some facts con- 
nected with my past history and my present position, which 
may sufliciently account for my appearing before the public 
just at this time. Born and educated in Germany, I arrived 
in this country in my twenty-first year, and after having 
spent twenty-eight years in the North, under circumstances 
which were especially calculated to endear to me the historic 
life, and the institutions of the country I had adopted, I 
lived in East Tennessee till treason there overthrew, for a 
time at least, the Government of the United States. My 
attachment to the Union compelled me to leave my home and 
my family to avoid a dungeon. It was then, when for more 
than a year I had had to witness the effects of a military 
despotism, Avhich exalted falsehood, fraud and robbery to 
the rank of virtues, and rode rough-shod over every one 
that was unwilling to adopt this creed, that I prayed God 
that the time might come when I, in some humble way, 
might bear witness to the fearfulness of the crime, which, by 
means the most foul, had in that region of country at least, 
placed at the mercy of villains, tlie most abandoned, the 
noble and devoted men of the country. Similar prayers 
have risen from other lips, but their testimony will only be 
heard in the day of judgment, for they have sealed their 
faithfulness with their death. Yet it is not only recollec- 
tions like these which now impel me to write. When after 
having fled from my home I at last had reached the lines of 
our troops which were then stationed near Cumberland Gap, 
I saw myself surrounded by hundreds of men with whom 
for years I had mingled at their altars and their firesides, 
and who like myself had been compelled to leave their 



4 

homes and families. Impressed witli the fact, that my past 
life would give me an influence in the North, which they 
could not have, they asked me to do all in my power to 
induce the men of the North to come to their relief, that 
they might be enabled with their swords to make their way 
back to their homes. I promised it, and now while I am 
about to fulfil this promise, I pray God that He may pre- 
pare for my words a ready access to the hearts of my 
readers. To all this I may add that I am once more stand- 
ing upon the ground on which first I stepped when I came 
to this country, that not a few of those with whom I became 
acquainted in early life are now, when far advanced in year? 
my honored friends, and that they have expressed a convic- 
tion -that my extensive acquaintance in Pennsylvania, wher? 
for years I have labored as a preacher and a teacher, migh^ 
enable me to impart information concerning the first work- 
ings and the gradual progress of treason in the South. Eight 
or wrong I have acceded to their request, and I would have 
acceded sooner if my duties as chaplain of a hospital had not 
been of such a character as to claim the whole of my time. 
East Tennessee, which late events have brought into, such 
general notice, is a portion of that elevated region of country 
which embraces Southern Kentucky, Northern Alabama^ 
Northern Georgia and Western North Carolina. The Cum- 
berland Mountains in East Tennessee reach occasionally the 
height of 2,000 feet, they are rich in minerals, from their 
sides leap innumerable springs, flowing through productive 
valleys and emptying finally into the Tennessee or Cumber- 
land rivers, the climate is magnificent, the scenery gran(3 
and picturesque, the population of an agricultural character, 
having comparatively few slaves. To this region of counti^y 
I had moved in 1855, I had purchased a farm, planted 
vineyards and had gathered a small congregation. I had 
indulged the hope that in the same measure as I was endeav- 
oring to make this home beautiful and productive, my 
children wou.ld resist the temptation to change, and this 
farm would be an heirloom in my family for many years to 
come. Beyond my spiritual sphere and these agricultural 
labors my ambition did not extend and with but a trifling 



change I conld adopt witli regard- to myself and my family 
the beautiful lines of Barry Cornwall ; 

Touch us gently, Time ! Humble voyagers are we, 

Let us glide adown tliy stream. Husband, wife and children three — 

Gently as we sometimes glide Two ai'e lost — two angels fled 

Through a quiet di'cam. To the azure overhead. 

These humble hopes, however, were not to be realized. 
It is now two years ago when I no longer could resist the 
conviction that we were standing on the very threshold of a 
treasonable attempt to break up the Union. At that time I 
happened to be in the house of one of my neighbors. In the 
course of the conversation the Union was mentioned by me. 
"The Union," said he, with a contemptuous smile, "the Union 
is gone ! " I could hardly trust my ears. Here stood a man 
befcJre me, who was not like myself an adopted citizen, but 
a native of this country, yet who was ready to obliterate 
from the family of nations the land which for more than 
thirty years I had learnt to regard as my own, and which 
had conferred on me innumerable blessings. "Hear me," 
said I to him, there was' a time when the disciples of the 
Lord had called blessings upon Him ; — the Pharisees asked 
him to stop his disciples, but the Lord told them that if his 
disciples were to be silent, the very stones would cry out. 
"You," added I, "were born in this country, you have Wash- 
ington and his time handed down to you as a direct inherit- 
ance, I am but an adopted citizen, I am but as one of the 
stones, but as one of the stones I cry out against you." It 
was at that time that a great Union meeting was held in the 
vicinity of Knoxville, Horace Maynard was occupied in 
another part of the State, but Andrew Johnson and other 
leading Union men were there, and the question was seri 
ously debated whether East Tennessee should take up arms 
and destroy the bridges in order, to prevent the sending of 
rebel troops from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama to 
Virginia. Less extreme measures prevailed, the bridges 
were not burnt, the troops from the Southern States rushed 
into East Tennessee, and the Union men of East Tennessee 
were singly overpowered and disarmed. In the mean- 
time Fort Sumter had fallen and some of the secessionists 



came to me and asked me to join tlie Soutliern Confed- 
eracy. "You remind me," said I, "of a good old bisliop, 
when lie was led to tlie stake lie was advised to abjure 
tke Savior and save his life. " Eiglity and five years, was 
the answer of tke bishop, has my Savior graciously pro- 
tected me, and should I now forswear him?' So say I to 
you; thirty and five years has the flag of the Union with 
the help of Grod nobly protected me, and should I now 
forswear it ?" The secessionists, however, became so violent 
in their measures that I found it necessary to go to Wash- 
ington in order to consult the Hon. Andrew Johnson, who 
by that time had succeeded in taking his place in Congress, 
and to find out whether we soon would obtain help or 
whether I would be compelled to move with my family to 
the North. When I went to Washington, Tennessee .was 
still in the Union, when I returned it had been taken out 
by force and by fraud, and I was compelled to find my 
way through the Cumberland Mountains as best I might. 
Governor Harris had in vain endeavored to get a convention 
sanctioned by the people, by the means of which he had 
hoped to carry the- State out of the Union. He had then 
called an extra session of the Legislature, and that body in 
violation of the express will of the people had declared an 
ordinance of separation on the 6th of May, submitting the 
question of Separation from the Federal Government 'and of 
Eepresentation in the Eichmond Congress to be voted on by 
the people on the 8th day of June. Against Separation from 
the Federal Government and Eepresentation in Eichmond, 
East Tennessee gave a majority of 18,300. It would have 
been much larger if the votes of rebel troops had not been 
counted, though under the constitution they had no author- 
ity to vote at any election. In this way however the State 
was forced out of the Union when a majority of her people 
were utterly averse to any such separation. 

Having arrived at home after having past through many 
trying scenes, I found that my journey to the "North had 
excited attention, and that threats had been made of hanging 
me as soon as I should return. I, however, had to visit 
Knoxville. When I entered the court house in that city, I 



found Judge Humplirejs occupied in judging men, who had 
committed no crime, but in various ways had expressed their 
partiality for the Union, This is the same Judge Hum- 
phreys against whom others as well as myself were cited to 
bear testimony in "Washington a few months ago, and who 
in consequence of that testimony was deposed from his 
office. When I had left the court house a friend took me 
aside, himself a secessionist, and told me that I would do 
well to leave the city, since in case the soldiers were to learn 
that I had just come from the North, I in a few minutes 
might be a dead man. Then came a time of darkness and 
oppression. The battle of Manassas had taken place, and for 
four months we were kept in the dark with regard to almost 
everything, which could have a favorable bearing on the 
pregervation or restoration of the Union. It was during this 
time that Judge Humphreys held court again in Knoxville, 
and that he himself told the State's Attorney that he had no 
right to send Union men to Tuscaloosa unless they were 
taken with arms in their hands. The State's Attorne}^, a 
wretched drunkard, replied that they had only been sent to 
Tuscaloosa in order to make of them good Southern men. 
Shortly before this time some of the Union men had secretly 
combined and had burned certain bridges, in order to put a 
stop to the thousands of soldiers who were every day passing 
on to Yirginia. Mr, Pickens who is now a Major in the U. 
S. Army, had taken part in this enterprise and had escaped. 
In consequence of it, his father, a Senator in the State's Leg- 
islature, had been seized and taken to Tuscaloosa. One of 
my neighbors returned at that time from Tuscaloosa, where 
he had been imprisoned, sick in body and in mind. He told 
me that he had left the aged Pickens in good health, but 
that he could not live, since he was confined with twenty- 
seven others in a small room, and in the night they were not 
permitted to open the windows. Pickens died. His wifo 
when she heard it, lost her reason and died ; a daughter 
being thus suddenly deprived of her parents also died of a 
broken heart! It was in this way that the State's Attorney 
in Knoxville made of Union men Good Southern Men I An 
acquaintance of mine, the Eev. Mr. Duggan, a highly re- 



spectable clergyman, was compelled on a hot day to walk 
twenty miles as a prisoner to Knoxville, because long before 
tlie State bad been carried out of the Union be bad prayed 
for the President of tbe United States. His borse was led 
bebind bim, and be, tbougb old and very corpulent, was not 
permitted to mount it. Wben be bad arrived in Knoxville, 
be was declared free, and free be soon was, for God took 
bim to bimself. Tbat journey on foot bad become tbe cause 
of bis deatb. A man named Ilaun bad been taken to 
prison, because be bad taken part in tbe burning of tbe 
bridges. Tbe names of tbe persons wbo tried bim bave never 
been made public. Not until be bad arrived at tbe place 
of execution did tbe public learn wby be was to be executed. 
He was asked wbetber be was sorry for wbat be bad done, 
be replied, tbat if placed in similar circumstances be would 
do it again, and tbat be was prepared to die. Otbers beside 
bim were bung, still otbers were sbot down or otherwise 
murdered. Nor did tbis spirit of oppression extend to 
Union men alone. Sbortly before I left East Tennessee, a 
wealthy secessionist named Jarnagan, wbo lived in my vicin- 
ity did not rest, till two companies were quartered in tbat 
town, in order to keep down tbe Union men. Three months 
afterwards he left bis residence, because, as he himself de- 
clared, bis own friends bad robbed bim of property worth 
$3,000, and would take his life if he would not give up alb 
It was still worse with Daniel Yarnall, another secessionist, 
and also one of my neighbor?. He had complained concern- 
ing tbe conduct of some soldiers in the Confederate army, 
and these soldiers had been punished ; in consequence of it 
they went to his bouse and stripped him. He bimself 
counted forty lashes, and then could count no more. When 
the workings of this treason first commenced, and I on my 
missionary tours was passing through the fruitful valleys 
and over tbe pleasant hill sides of East Tennessee, and 
beheld the fields ready for the harvests, and tbe industrious 
men and women engaged in their daily round of duties, I 
asked myself, whether indeed it was possible, that the mad 
ambition of men would go so far as to desolate these scenes 
of beauty. It has proved possible indeed ! Where but two 



years ago there were all tlic elements calculated to make a 
community prosperous, there is now misery and wretched- 
ness the most fearful, and the rule of an armed mob bent 
upon indiscriminate plunder. Do you see yonder wretch ? 
He has been a drunkard and a vagabond all his life-time, yet 
he has thousands of dollars in his pocket now, and he rides 
the most beautiful horse in that whole region of country. I 
could take you to the industrious farmer from whom he 
took the horse, and whom he robbed of his money, and who 
now, together with his wife and children are left in penury ! 
Do you. see yonder girl ? How beautiful she would be, if it 
were not for the loss of that eye ! That eye she lost in succe.<s- 
fully defending her honor against the assault of a Confederate 
soldier, until her father could come to her aid and slay him. 
Ah, my reader, you who live here so comfortable and so 
undisturbed, have little knowledge of what is going on but 
a few hundred miles from here. I have seen the man of 
eighty, the oldest and the wealthiest man of a loyal district, 
who at his age had joined the Home Guards, raise his trem- 
bling hands to heaven, and ask God whether there was no 
curse in store for deeds so cruel. I have heard the gentle 
woman exclaim that she must have the blood of one of 
these men, her spirit being maddened to desperation because 
they had fired a hundred shots at her husband. Who could 
remain cold at the sight of enormities like these ? I have 
often been asked whether the representations made by 
Brownlow and others can be relied on. Neither Brownlow 
nor myself, nor any, nor all of us can give a full record of 
cruelties which have been perpetrated and are now being 
perpetrated in the recesses of the mountains and valleys of 
, East Tennessee, or of the sufferings and the deaths through 
which East Tennesseeans have to pass in the prisons of the 
South from want of food, from filth, from absence of venti- 
lation and from degrading work. 

After the defeat of the rebels near Mill Spring had taken 
place, I had to go secretly to Kentucky in order to attend to 
some private aftairs of mine. After my return the battle of 
Pittsburg Landing had occurred, and Fort Henry, Fort Don- 
elson and Nashville had fallen into the hands of the Federal 



10 

troops. In consequence of these reverses tlie conscription 
law was enacted. There was a place of mustering near my 
house, where in former times generally some 800 men had 
mustered ; that day only about 50 appeared. Two nights 
after, almost all the men able to bear arms disappeared, went 
to Kentucky, and entered the United States Army. Then 
Churchwell, the Provost Marshal of East Tennessee, a man 
who has since been called to the Judgment bar of God, 
issued a proclamation and declared that if these men would 
come back they should be permitted peacefully to pursue 
their avocations ; at the same time, however, he attempted 
to seize some of the most influential Union men who had yet 
staid behind. I was to be one of the victims ; by a most 
Providential combination of circumstances I received early 
notice of the fact that five men were sent out to apprehend 
me. I had made up my mind to go to prison. I could not 
bear the thought of leaving the atmosphere where my wife 
and my children were breathing, but my wife prevailed on 
me to go to our friends in the North. Her last words were : 
" Fear not for me, I trust in God,;" I begged her to kiss our 
children, and I turned into the mountains. Never I trust, 
shall I cease to be thankful for the gracious manner in which 
I was shielded from harm in that perilous journey. Six 
months later my wife and my children arrived in Cincinnati, 
having crossed the Cumberland Mountains in the rear of 
the two contending armies, and having made more than 300 
miles in an open buggy. We have since removed to this 
city, where I have been appointed Chaplain of the Turner's 
Lane Hospital. 

Now, after having made these statements, which in a great 
measure refer to myself, I wish to draw the attention of the, 
reader to certain subjects which are of vital importance to 
all of us, and on which my past experience, such as I have 
just described it, may enable me to shed some light. In the 
first place, then, let me advise every one who reads these 
pages to turn away from the man, who attempts to persuade 
himself and others, that the South has been driven into her 
treasonable course in consequence of the wrong inflicted on 
her by the North. This, indeed, is one of the falsehoods by 



11 

whicli the men of the South have attempted to excuse their 
treason, but it was not the cause of it. Do you think, I 
believed them, when they came to me about that time and 
told me that the men of the North were a set of cowards 
who would not fight, and that one Southerner could whip 
five of them at any time ? Do you think I believed them 
when they spoke of drawing the line between the North and 
the South along the Ohio river, and of erecting an immense 
fortress opposite Cincinnati, and of battering down that city, 
whenever the North interfered with slavery? Or do you 
think I believed them, when they advised me to join the 
South, because, if the South succeeded. East Tennessee would 
be a great manufacturing country, and my little property 
would increase a hundred-fold in value ? Of course I did 
not believe them. I knew too much about my friends in 
the North to doubt their bravery, and I had seen too much 
of the Vant of manufacturing entcrprize in the South to 
indulge the hope that my property would be worth any 
thing, if the South should gain the ascendency. Just as 
little did I believe it, when they came to me and told me 
that they were compelled to rise in rebellion, because the 
North was resolved to rob the South of their slaves. Had 
not I listened to the Eev. Dr. Eoss and many of the other 
leaders of the movement ? Washington and Jefferson and 
the men of their time had, indeed, regarded slavery as an 
evil which would gradually give way under the influence 
of Christianity ; but not so these apostles of our own time 
or of the immediate past. According to them, slavery is 
the very foundation, on which Christianity is resting, take it 
away and Christianity crumbles to pieces ; according to them 
on the existence of slavery depends the cause of freedom, 
touch that institution and freedom as well as Christianity 
are crushed. Strange doctrines these, you say, yet these 
are the doctrines which have been taught in the South by 
divine and layman for more than twenty-five years, and 
taught for the very purpose, which they now attempt to 
realize by their treasonable movement, and into which they 
have been drawn for reasons very different from those which 
they have made public. It was indeed not abolition nor 



12 

any other imaginary wrong inflicted on tliem by tlie ISTortli, 
■wMcli influenced their action, but a conviction of a very 
different character. With all their boasts concerning the 
divine character of the institution of slavery, and the spirit- 
ual and temporal blessings which resulted from it, they could 
not conceal from themselves, that in its practical workings 
slavery in many respects looked very much like a curse. 
Why was it that these vast multitudes of emigrants were 
peopling the North, while they kept away from the South ? 
Why, that manufactures and commerce selected the North 
for their favored home ? How did it happen that if you 
started from Pittsburg on your way to St, Louis, you would 
see on the right hand side of the Ohio river, flourishing 
towns and cultivated fields without number, while on the 
left, nature reigned beautiful but unproductive? It was 
slavery which was the cause of it, and the time was fast 
approaching when the South compared to the North would 
he in a lamentable minority, and would lose that influence 
over the General Government which it had so long enjoyed. 
Hence the criminal resolve of breaking the Union to pieces, 
and of founding an aristocratic empire with slavery for its 
basis, and the prospect of having untold wealth, pouring 
into its bosom by re-opening the African slave trade. Ah 
Avhat anguish have we Union men of the South suffered 
when one and another of these diabolical plans was de- 
veloped to our view. How vain the hope of being benefitted 
by the resolutions of Crittenden, or by any other resolutions, 
when we had learnt that the Union was to be broken to 
pieces at every cost. Many an appeal reached the South at 
that time from the great conservative body of the people in 
the North, calling upon them to be but patient for a few 
days and they should receive every security for their rights 
which they possibly could desire. There were many hearts, 
which bounded with joy and with hope at these appeals, 
but they met no response in those Southern Senators, who 
had it in their power to pass the Crittenden resolutions, but 
v-'ho refused to vote, that they might break Tip the Union. 
Abolition no doubt has to answer for many things, but it 
never will have to answer for having brought about this 



13 

rebellion. Tlie power was rapidly escaping from the hands 
which had wielded it so long, and that power was to be pre- 
served, though the country should be deluged in blood, and 
the recollections of a glonous past be given to the winds. 
Yet there are still those amongst us, who are sympathizing 
with the South, on account of the wrongs it has suffered at 
the hands of the North. I assure you that the slaveholders 
of East Tennessee, who are Union men, do not feel that they 
need such sympathy. They never have complained that 
they have lost any of their rights, and they look with utter 
abhorrence upon this attempt to obliterate from the family 
of nations, a country which surpassed every other in a spirit 
of justice and humanity. They are most decidedly of opinion 
that God would be altogether just, if He should sweep away 
the institution of slavery, which these men intend to make 
the foundation of their empire, and if they also in conse- 
quence of it have to suffer loss they are prepared for it. It 
is by the preservation of the Union alone, that they can 
have security not only for the property which may be lefb 
them, but for liberty and life. Shortly before I left East 
Tennessee, T was in the house of a wealthy slave owner, a 
devoted friend of the Union. He spoke with tears of this 
attempt to break up the Union, adding that there was a report 
that the Government of the United States intended to con- 
fiscate the slaves. He did not believe, he said, that the 
Government would deprive loyal slaveholders of their pro- 
perty, but in case it should be necessary, in order to preserve 
the Union, he would gladly give up the slaves. Another 
slaveholder, also one of my acquaintances, who had been 
robbed of a large portion of his property, and who had been 
in prison for months, at last reached his home again. " The 
last dollar," he said to his wife, "the last slave, if but the 
Union be preserved, and joyfully we will start anew in life." 
"Think you," said another distinguished slaveholder, a refu- 
gee from East Tennessee,* the other day in the city of New 
York, in the same spirit, "that for the pleasure of enjoying 
the company of my wife and my babes whom I have not seen 
for the last two years, I would not have willingly given all 
* The Rev. Mr. Carter. 



14 

tliat my negroes are worth, or all that they ever will be 
worth to me ? " Yet though the Union men of the South 
thank them so little for their sympathy, the sympathizers 
here are still going on in the same strain. " Pray, sir," said 
one of them to me but a few days ago, how would you like 
it, if you had owned two hundred negroes and they had 
been taken away from you?" "I would certainly feel satis- 
fied," was my reply, "if at that price I had obtained security 
for the property I might still have, but most of all for my 
liberty and my life. I have not lost two hunderd slaves, 
but I have lost all the property I owned, and which I valued 
at six thousand dollars. Yet by giving it up and escaping 
to the North, I again enjoy the benefits resulting from the 
Union, and the means of supporting my family." 

By facts like these I am readily reminded of others, which 
it may be as well to mention in this connection. I have 
very frequently heard of late the assertion, that this is not a 
war for the Union but for the freeing of the negroes, and 
gentlemen have told me, that they, indeed, are as much for 
the Union as ever, but that they are constrained to oppose 
the administration, because it has now raised issues which 
are altogether foreign to the original objects of the war. 
Now in order to meet this objection in a satisfactory man- 
ner, I beg the reader to look at the beginning of this war. 
When the South was going on in taking one aggressive step 
after the other, and the United States Government still bore 
it patiently, a gentleman, who is now prominent in the ranks 
of secession, but who at that time had not made up his mind 
which way he would turn, expressed great astonishment at 
this conduct. " The United States," he said, " are a powerful 
nation, but even for a nation so powerful it seems strange 
to be so slow in punishing treason." Ignorant as I then was 
of the extent of this treason, I gloried in this forbearance of 
the United States because it was so much in keeping with 
the spirit it had ever manifested to leave room for the loyalty 
that might still exist in the South to make itself felt. At a 
later period, however, the necessity of an energetic move- 
ment had become evident, and government and people unan- 
imously declared that they were fighting, and would fight 



15 

on for the Union and tlio Constitution. I "became "well 
acquainted with this state of feeling, for I was then in the 
North, But then, again, there came another phase of the 
struggle. The Federal arms had been sufficiently successful 
in taking possession of large portions of slave territory, and 
they had to meet the question, what they should do with 
the negroes of disloj^al slaveholders. The question was 
finally solved hy the proclamation of the President, a docu- 
ment, which is the result of the circumstances in which the 
disloyalists of the South have placed themselves by their 
treasonable course. Thus it has happened that thousands, 
and let me add, I am of the number, while thaj have at all 
times opposed abolitionism, and have been in favor of secur- 
ing the South in all their rights, have now come to feel, that 
treason has no rights whatever, and that the negroes, if they 
furnish to traitors the means of support, and of carrjdng on 
this war against the Union, should be deprived of these 
means wherever an opportunity offers, and that the}^ ought 
to sustain the Government to the utmost in their power, 
because it is acting in accordance with these views. To 
illustrate this subject from what may be called the common 
sense view of it, I beg leave to relate an incident related 
to me by a clergyman, whose name I shall be happy to give, 
as soon as he will permit me to do so. He had been invited 
to deliver a patriotic address in a neighborhood, which was 
not celebrated on account of its patriotism, and hints had 
been dropped, that if he did go there he might expect to be 
handled somewhat roughly. The clergyman however did 
go. He proposed to stop at the house of an acquaintance 
who was quite an excitable character. Before entering the 
house, he heard that one of the agitators on the other side of 
the question had been there in the morning. He of course 
then expected a scene of a good deal of excitement, and he 
was by no means disappointed. Hardly had he entered 
when his friend rushed up to him, and exclaimed : " Well, 
sir, it is all over now ! " " What is over." " There is going 
to be a draft." " Well, what of that ? " " We will not go ! " 
" But you will be made to go." " What, make fifty thou- 
sand men go ? " " Ah remember my friend, it is not every 



w 

one thinks in this way. It is only a little corner here of 
Pennsylvania." "But," exclaimed the other with great 
vehemence, "I will not fight for the nigger I" "Not fight 
for the nigger," said my friend. " "Well, now, listen to me. 
Suppose I were a general of the Secessionists, and had fifty 
thousand troops under my command, and I were standing 
here, and you were a general of the Union troops, and you 
iad fifty thousand men under your command, and you were 
standing over there. And now suppose that you had learnt 
that here back of my right wing I had stored a vast deal of 
ammunition, and that you knew a way how to get round 
there and take it away from me, you also knowing that if 
you did take it, I would have no powder to fire at you, 
would you take it ? " " Certainlj^ ! " " And then suppose 
that you had learnt that back of my left wing I had stored 
a considerable amount of provisions, and that you had an 
opportunity of getting hold of it, jou knowing that if 3'ou 
succeeded in taking it, I would have to do with half rations 
and might be very much disposed to give up the fight; 
would you go and take it ? " " Surely I would ! " " And 
then again suppose, that fir in the rear of me, there were 
five thousand negroes constantly at work in order to supply 
me with the provisions I needed, and that you knew a way 
how to catch them, and that you knew that if you did catch 
them, I was sure to give up, for I would have nothing what- 
ever to eat. Would you go and catch them ? " " Surely 
I would.^ " Well, that is all the Government proposes to 
do." " Is that all ? " " Yes." " Well I am for that ! " So 
it is, my reader, those who declare that the Government is 
no longer fighting for the Union and the Constitution are 
far from the truth. We have to accustom ourselves to the 
thought, that as matters now stand in the South, traitors 
have no right under the Constitution, and that the safety 
and the perpetuity of the Union, demand that they should 
be deprived of every means by which they are aided in 
their treasonable course. He who opposes the Government 
in this respect, is aiding and abetting treason, and to arrest 
such and punish them is the duty which the Government 
owes to the safety of its loyal citizens and to itself. 



17 

And this brings me to another branch of my subject. I 
have been often asked, what is likely to be the final result 
of all this loss of treasure and of blood. A similar ques- 
tion, I understand, one of my friends addressed the other 
day to a prominent individual in Washington. The person 
thus addressed was silent for a time, and then said with 
deep earnestness : " Our prophets are dead and I cannot 
tell." By the prophets he meant those great statesmen* 
Jefferson, Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, 
Clay, Webster and others, who in times gone by have been 
our political teachers, and who have pointed out to us the 
course we must take in order to enjoy peace and prosperity. 
But however interesting and touching this answer may 
appear, he could have given a better one. He could have 
said : " Our prophets are dead, and yet they speak." They 
speak by their example, and by the writings which they 
have bequeathed to us. Jefferson when he had been elected 
President said in his inaugural address : " We have called 
those .who are our brothers, and who hold the same principles 
with ourselves by different- names," referring thus mildly to 
the spirit of party which had been manifested previous to 
the election. Monroe when he had been President for four 
years, had so acted in the spirit of the words of Jefferson, 
that when his re-election was to take place, there was none 
to oppose him ; the whole people formed a great American 
Union party. When Jackson, the democrat, had to contend 
against the doctrine of separation as promulgated by South 
Carolina, there stood by his side, Daniel Webster, the whig, 
and proved, particularly in his celebrated speech against 
Colonel Hayne of South Carolina, that the Constitution does 
not confer the right upon a single State, to cut loose from 
the Union at its pleasure. And when, on another occa- 
sion, again the safety of the Union was imperilled, it was 
Henry Clay, the whig, who expressed his gratitude to cer- 
tain democratic members, because in the hour of danger 
they had set aside all considerations of party, and had aided 
him in preserving the Union. Nor would I forget John 
Quincy Adams, who, when he entered upon his presidential 
career, declared that no man who bore a good character and 



18 

was iit for tlie office he held, should be deprived of it from 
considerations of party, and who acted in accordance with 
this declaration. Though dead, they speak. They tell us 
that now as in the time of Jefferson there are those, who, 
though they are called by different names, are yet our 
brethren, who are holding the same principles with us ; 
they admonish us, that when the existence of the Union is 
at stake, we for a time at least ought to keep up our party 
lines less strictly, taking for 9ur platform the U'.iion as our 
forefathers have done; they speak to those in power and 
tell them that in the choice of the men they employ, they 
ought to be guided by merit and not by party considera- 
tions, and they speak to those who hold responsible positions 
under the Government, and remind them that they are 
bound to carry out the policy of the Government, indepen- 
dent of the fact that their associations of party, would lead 
them in a different direction. It is this ground which the 
Union men of East Tennessee desire to occupy. "When one 
of our wealthy slaveholders, after monihs of. imprisonment, 
had returned, he was one day near his house, sitting upon 
a fence. Some Confederate soldiers were passing by, and 
one of them called to him to shout for Jefferson Davis. My 
friend refused to do so. " Are you for Lincoln ? " asked the 
other. " I am for the Union," answered my friend, " and if 
Lincoln is for the Union, then am I for Lincoln." The 
soldiers threatened to kill him, but at that time did not do it. 
The Union is with the Union men of East Tennessee the 
paramount question. Every other is secondary. They are 
willing to lose sight of all party distinctions for a time, if 
the safety of the Union should require it. In this connec- 
tion, however, I must once more allude to the subject of 
slavery. As I have already had an opportunity of showing, 
they are willing to put up with slavery, if that should be 
most conducive to the welfare of the Union, and they are 
willing to do without it, if the good of the Union should 
require it. It was sentiments like these which I expressed 
the other day in a large Democratic meeting. "Ah," said one 
of my hearers, "then that is just as Mr. Lincoln says: 'The 
Union with slavery, if that be best, the Union partly with 



19 

and partly without slaver}^ if tliat be "best, tlie Union with- 
out slavery, if that be best ; the Union any way.' " And 
they all approved of the doctrine. I hope the time will 
come when sentiments like these, which were uttered by 
loyal men in Montgomery county in this State, will be gen- 
erally entertained, and when we all shall feel the importance 
of that spirit of forbearance, which in past times has guided 
us safely through so many dangers. 

Among the many means which are used to mislead and 
deceive men, few have been found more efficient than tlie 
declaration, which we hear so often repeated, that we want 
" the Constitution as it is, and the Union as it was." When 
these words are- pronounced by certain individuals they are 
exceedingly significant. They mean nothing less than that 
this administration is an abolition administration, that it is 
the cause of the war, that from the beginning it has carried 
on the war to subjugate the South and to set the negroes 
free, that it is a tyrannical administration subverting the 
Constitution, and that there is no hope for this country 
unless this administration- can be overturned, the war be 
stopped and the rights of the South be acknowledged. By 
it they mean to say that they look with approval upon every 
measure of the Southern leaders, while they have nothing 
but abuse for the administration and those who sustain it, 
that they deeply sympathize with Jefferson Davis and his 
followers, while the men who have been driven from their 
homes, they regard as traitors to the sacred cause of the 
South, upon whom they mean to heap public and private 
insults whenever an opportunity shall offer. Such is the 
meaning of the words : " The Constitution as it is and the 
Union as it was," when these words come from certain lips. 
It is the very essence of treason, busily engaged in stirring 
up civil war in the North, openly or secretly. When uttered 
by others it is done more thoughtlessly, and the principal 
idea connected with them seems the conviction, that we 
ought to make peace and go on as we did in former times. 
It would be well, however, if men who make use of these 
words would fairly determine what they ought to mean. I 
also say : Give me the Union as it was. " Give it to me, to 



20 

use tlie language of a clistinguislied East Tennessean,* aa 
it was, when Washington to suppress rebellion, sent into 
Western Pennsylvania fifteen thousand men under the com- 
mand of his neighbor and friend General Lee 

When Webster and Clay rallied to the support of Andrew 
Jackson, and sent treason whipped and abashed to its lair. 
When Millard Fillmore, called to account for the disposition 
of his fleets in the harbor of Charleston, replied, that he was 
not responsible for his official conduct to the Governor of 
South Carolina." Such " as it was " is the Union I desire. 
Do not speak to me of a Union, such as it was, when James 
Buchanan connived at the treason which the members of 
his Cabinet were plotting, or when John C. Breckinridge 
poured forth treason in the Senate of the United States. 
If it even were possible to restore such a Union, it would 
be utterly wanting in the efements necessary for its per- 
petuity. One of the leaders of Secession in East Tennessee, 
a young man full of self-conceit and a captain in the rebel 
army, visited the house of one of our aged Union men, a 
descendant of one of the revolutionary heroes. " Ah," said 
the military fop, strutting up- and down the room, " you old 
men may indeed talk of Washington and of his time as you 
do, but we who are younger have been brought up under 
different influences, and we follow different teachers." It 
is even so, and it would be in vain to think of forming a 
Union Avith men, who utterly repudiate what to the Ameri- 
can patriot are sentiments the most, sacred and the most 
true. The South has to be taught that the falsehoods on 
which they attempt to erect their slavery empire are not 
strong enough to serve their purpose, and whenever they 
have been taught it, we may have a Union, as it was in the 
days of this country's glory, a Union, better fitted to bless 
the world than it ever has been before, because chastened 
and purified. 

And there is still another representation made by design- 
ing men, in order to mislead those who are little acquainted 
with the condition of afiairs in the South. It is said that if 
in consequence of the war the negroes are set free they will 

* Speech of the Hon. Horace Maynard of Tennessee, delivered in the 
House of Representatives, January 31, 1863. 



21 

come to tlie Nortli and will bring down the free labor of the 
North, to a ruinous extent. I have lived but six years in the 
South, and I have seen slavery but in Tennessee, in Georgia 
and in portions of South Carolina, Virginia and Alabama. 
As far as my knowledge extends I am fully persuaded tl^at 
statements such as the one referred to are utterly void of. 
foundation. Let me say to my readers emphatically, that 
the impressions which many have here in the North con- 
cerning the slaves of the South are .extremely erroneous. 
The negroes are attached to the South by many bonds 
which are not easily broken. The South they regard as 
their home, they greatly prefer its climate ; there many of 
them have families to whom they are attached, and church 
relations which they highly value ; there they have an op- 
portunity of making a good living, with but little labor, and 
though many desire to be free and daily pray for the success 
of the Northern arms, yet there is not one of them, I believe, 
who would think of coming North after he has obtained his 
freedom, and is placed in circumstances which will permit 
him quietly to enjoy it. " I'care little," said a wealthy slave- 
holder to me, shortly before I left East Tennessee, " whether 
my slaves are set free or not. If they were set free they 
would not leave me. I would pay them what is right, and 
they would continue to work my plantation." 

Before concluding I may be permitted to make another 
brief reference to myself. I need not say that Germany is 
dear to me ; in Germany rest the bones of my fathers ; there 
have I lived the beautiful days of my childhood and early youth. 
In Germany there are now living those who are bound to 
me not only by the ties of blood, but by ties which reach 
far beyond the grave. Yet while Germany is dear to me, I 
have also learnt to love this country during the thirty-five 
years I have lived here. I love it because it has invited 
millions like myself to its hospitable shores ; I love it because 
it has extended its protection not only in distant lands or 
on distant seas, but also in every humble valley and on 
every retired hillside. There the industrious farmer could 
quietly attend to his daily avocation, and in the evening 
return to the circle of his family, as I have done for years, 



22 

and there under his own vine and fig-tree lie could look 
forward to the time when he wo-uld peacefully close his life. 
When it seemed to be placed beyond a doubt that the Union 
had ceased to exist, the friends of the South came to me once 
more, and told me that I could have now no objection to 
unite with them. I replied, that when I came to this country, 
I swore allegiance to the Union, that in case the Union had 
indeed ceased to exist, I did not own allegiance either to the 
South or to the North, that I would return to my native 
land and there perhaps after many years, when far advanced 
in life, I would take my children's children upon my knees, 
and with streaming eyes I would tell them of a noble land, 
a powerful Union, of which at one time I was a citizen. 
Since I have come North and have once more met with old 
friends, who with the fire of youth are ready to battle for the 
Union, which has protected them for so many years, and 
since I have been brought in contact with so many youthful 
spirits who go to the field of battle with the same spirit 
which filled the heroes of the past, I am strongly impressed 
with the fact that this Union is by no means so near its 
dissolution as some of my Southern friends seemed to think 
it was, and with John Adams I am ready to say, "Sink or 
swim, live or die, survive or j^erish, the fortunes of this 
country shall be my fortunes ! " I stood the other day on 
the spot where Melchoir Miihlenburg, the founder of the 
Lutheran church in the United States, had labored for many 
years. There at the time of the revolution and on a certain 
Sabbath he had stood in his pulpit and had preached Christ 
and Him crucified ; he descends from the pulpit, he puts off 
liis gown, and he stands there before his astonished con- 
gregation in full military costume. There is a time for 
preaching, he says, and there is a time for fighting, and my 
time for fighting has come." Many clergymen are now 
following his example. I know not what may be in store 
for me, but I am certain that I am in the path of duty in 
addressing these words of solemn warning to such as may 
choose to read them. In what I have written I have briefly 
traced the misrepresentations by which the leaders of the 
South have succeeded in deceiving the great mass of the 



23 

people and the misery wliicli has been the result of it. If 
the same spirit of deception should be successful here as it 
has been in the South, then the picture I have drawn of East 
Tennessee will be reflected in the valleys and on the hill- 
sides of Pennsylvania, we shall have here indeed the consti- 
tution as it iS; but as it is in the South with its armed mobs, 
its spirit of indiscriminate plunder and its deeds of violence, 
and we shall no longer worrj^ about the danger of having 
tlie slaves coming North, for we shall be all slaves, ruled 
with an iron rod by our Southern masters, and by those few 
Northern sympathizers and 'demagogues whom anarchy will 
make masters instead of slaves. 

And now, in conclusion, I shall be permitted to make 
another brief reference to one of our "prophets." It is 
Daniel Webster, who in closing the speech, in which he 
proves that the constitution is not a compact between sov- 
ereign States, dwells in a strain of touching sadness on the 
possible future of the United States if the friends of nullifi- 
cation should be able to give practical effect to their opinions. 
"They would prove themselves in his judgment, the most 
skilful architects of ruin, the most effectual extinguishers of 
high raised expectations, the greatest blasters of human 
hopes that any age has produced. They would stand forth 
to proclaim in tones which would pierce the ears of half the 
human race, that the last experiment of representative gov- 
ernment had failed .... Millions of eyes, of those 
who now feed their inherent love of liberty on the success of 
the American example, would turn away on beholding our 
dismemberment, and find no place on earth whereon to rest 
their gratified sight. Amidst the incantations and orgies of 
nullification, secession, disunion and revolution would be 
celebrated the funeral rites of constitutional and republican 
liberty ! " I am thankful that it is not my task to trace in 
detail how much of the ruin which Daniel Webster thus 
anticipated has actually come to pass. Mine is a more 
oheerful task. However heart-rending the struggle may be 
through which we are passing, it is not a hopeless struggle 
to him who looks higher than the earth for a solution of it. 
If we see many things passing away which long familiarity 



24 

lias endeared to us, it is tliat tliey may be supplanted by 
liiglier and better ones. When tlie city of Geneva, threat- 
ened by the Duke of Savoy, the Pope and the Emperor, was 
reduced to the greatest ^weakness, its inhabitants still re- 
mained undismayed. " GenWva," they said, " is in danger of 
being destroyed, but God watches over us ; better have war 
and liberty than peace and servitude ; we do not put our 
trust in princes, and to God alone be the honor and glory ! " 
How important the lesson which Geneva then was learning, 
and how well for us if we prove equally teachable, if we also 
learn to put our trust more fully in God than Ave have been 
disposed to do, fearful as the trials may be through which 
we may have to pass, we shall not be left vathout help. But 
in this respect also our prophets are our teachers. The 
sentiments with which Daniel Webster closed the speech, 
I have referred to, and which are conceived in this spirit 
we are fearlessly to put into action. "With my whole 
heart I pray for the continuance of the domestic peace 
and quiet of the country. I desire, most ardently, the 
restoration of affection and harmony to all its parts. I desire 
that every citizen of the whole country may look to this 
government with no other sentiments than those of grateful 
respect and attachment, but I cannot yield even to kind 
feelings the cause of the constitution, the true glory of the 
country, and the great trust which we hold in our hands for 
succeeding ages. If the constitution cannot be maintained 
without meeting these scenes of commotion and contest how- 
ever imwelcome, they must come. We cannot, we must not, 
Ave dare not omit to do that which in our judgment, the 
safety of the Union requires .... I am ready to 
perform my OAvn appropriate part, Avhenever and Avherever 
the occasion may call on me, and to take my chance among 
those upon Avhom bloAVS may fall first and fall thickest. I 
shall exert CA^ery faculty I possess in aiding to prcA^ent the 
constitution from being nullified, destroyed or impaired; 
and even should I see it fall, I Avill still Avith a voice feeble, 
perhaps, but earnest as ever issued from human lips, and 
Avith fidelity and zeal AAdiich nothing shall extinguish, call 
on the PEOPLE to come to its rescue." 



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